Can My Boss See What I Do Online? - Comments Page 1

It occurs to me that using company time and equipment - i. e. the computer and internet - is just another way of stealing from the employer. In this case stealing time, electricity and if it is flagrant the necessary space for honest employees to get their work accomplished.

Good tips, but it goes even further. I work for a public school district, and we use monitoring software that allows authorized staff to watch what users are doing in realtime. It's used primarily to make sure students are keeping off "bad" sites, as we don't block anything but Myspace. The idea is that kids are taught what the rules are and to "trust but verify." It's impossible to block everything, so why bother.

Same applies to businesses. Internet activity is logged and monitored. Email is backed up and can be retrieved at a moments notice. Even if you RDC or use logmein, that activity can be easily viewed on an admin console.

Nowaday, big brother (that's me) IS watching, via security cameras, monitoring software and other tools!

I agree completely with your last four points and final thoughts, but just a caution on some of the things you mentioned earlier. If your employer allows you to check personal e-mail (mine does not), and even with the company e-mail system, don't be stupid and open attachments or click links that could cause havoc, or supply information/passwords to anyone. Many people did just that when our 'IT department' supposedly sent an e-mail asking for updated information/passwords as well as the old/previous passwords. Many people fell for it and now our IT is having to try and clean up a big mess.

As Mr. Rankin said, many companies have a policy stating misuse of the Internet is justifiable means for immediate termination (my employer does). Very understandable to me, because other than the occasional CNN or weather.com (if events/severe weather are brewing), what do you need to know at work that can't wait? And to actually buy Online during company time and company Internet resources is just stupid, why bite the hand that feeds you? And Facebook? That is a joke I hope disappears very soon; your life is not that interesting, trust me because mine certainly is not.

Everywhere we go is logged and audited, and rightfully so. I would never think of losing my job over the Internet because I can do those things when I get home. Besides, I work for a great company that not only lets us bring laptops, but even air cards so we can, during lunch, breaks or down time of course, surf the Internet on our own dime/plan. That is a thought for the Limewire 'person' you mentioned (had to censor myself as I wanted to call this human what they really are!). That person has opened not only himself up to lawsuit, but his employer as well I'd imagine. No gratitude at having a job in this horrible economy it appears. Wow.

If your network admin is any good at all (I am), all your network traffic is monitored, internet and intranet. Everything you do on the network is seen and logged, as well as the user and machine it was done on. Then we use programs that aggregate all this data and flag any suspicious activity. This is all done without anything being installed on the user workstation - no keyloggers, no tracking software, nothing.

Anything of concern that pops up is turned over to the manager of that department. The manager is then responsible for any follow up deemed necessary.

So anything you do on your company's network is most likely being monitored. Make sure you understand this before you try to do something you should be doing at home.

TanMan

I agree with TanMan.
I hear the other VALID points and while I do agree with them in principle, I feel that they only portray or possibly even are looking from a negative perspective.
Here is a partial list of positive reasons for using the net:
A resource to gather and validate information.
To find and work with others
To request and respond to proposals
To gather feedback from customers and vendors
To purchase or sell new or used equipment
To identify new customers, products or services
To find and acquire new skills
skills.

As an employee and not an IT person, I agree with the points of the article. I particularly warn my coworkers to use web email and not work email for personal stuff. However, I wonder about the statistics.

For instance, is reading this article on company time considered "personal" surfing? If so, why? What is considered "personal surfing?" That can be real grey.

Facebook can be considered non-work-related, except that my organization has several fan pages on Facebook and I administer them, on work time. (sorry, toadfacedfrump, but there's surprising value in social networking for businesses)

My organization doesn't send me for training, so most of my skill set is either acquired by trying new things or researching online how to do them. This might even include downloading software to test. (legally but violates most IT departments' rules)

In today's American work environment, we're seeing a greater expectation of working longer and harder for less money. (Americans work more hours than any other advanced nation, but salary averages have decreased) Companies spend an average of $5000 to recruit a skilled worker. The boss probably isn't aware of that figure, but I bet HR is. If the boss wants to keep skilled workers, s/he's going to need to be a bit lenient, at least during lunch hours or breaks.

On a small scale it is easy to see how this can be done.

I use Network Magic from Cisco. If you own a router from them (Linksys) - there is a free version. The paid-for version can e-mail you w/a report of all websites visited by all on network (those linked to your computer). It can also allow the password protected administrator to control when or if they can be online.

I consider this almost malware-like as once it is enabled it cannot be disabled. I had to close my account and rereg as a new user and change the options in order to rid my system of this feature.

It could be useful to parents wanting to 'monitor' online behavior of children - however my teens would have burned me @ the stake were I to have done this.

Other purposes and implications are quite clear...

Can't you just use linux on a flash drive? Also employers I've worked for realise employees aren't automatons so allow certain pesonal leeway during lunch breaks, pre work and after work, as long as you're not breaking the law.

on a "personal" level - if you're using ie7 there is a STAR in the upper left-hand corner that records what sites you've visited = HISTORY.
on a "buisness level" - i worked for the federal government and all our computers were logged on to the main frame out of san francisco.
if your employment level was "supervisor" or above you could log in and see EXACTLY where/when your employee left the main frame AND the sites that were visited.

i understand both sides of the situation.

it is almost impossible to get through their filters unless you knew an it tech or could hack
through, but, of course, if you started hacking an alarm was set-off and you got hauled in and you kissed your position "goodbye" !!!

It doesn't matter if you use a flash drive, employers can see the network traffic. The only real way around this is to use your home pc from work. (the logmein idea). Some employers block this kind of traffic also.

Bottom line, if you aren't working during your work day, then you need to ask yourself if its worth losing your job over.

Can email or chatting from an iPhone, Blackberry, or other wireless device be monitored at work?

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you're connecting via the cellphone signal. then no. If you tap into a local wireless network (wifi) then yes. Of course if you work for the FBI, CIA or NSA, then all bets are off. :-)

At my place of employment there is a very clear policy regarding internet usage on company equipment while on work time stating that all activity is subject to monitoring. However, I am frequently required to stay overnight "on-call." During this on-call time, after a certain point in the evening (usually about 8 pm) I can take time for personal, non-work-related activities, as long as I respond promptly to calls.

The organization has a "public internet" wifi network that is unfiltered and reasonably fast, so from time to time, I will bring in my laptop and, once I am into my "personal time unless called" window, I sometimes check personal e-mails, check my facebook site for notifications, check amazon or my netflix queue, etc.

My questions:

1) Since it is a "public internet" wifi network, should I still assume it is being monitored by my employer?

2) As long as I am accessing the public wifi only on my breaks and/or personal time and not saying anything deprecating about the company or disclosing anything confidential can I safely assume this would be acceptable to my employer?

I highly value my employment, obviously, and would never want to do anything that would place me under suspicion or subject me to the risk of disciplinary action or worse.

The "public internet" wifi is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the company internet policy- it just says "internet connections sponsored by" [company name].

Any words of advice? Thanks in advance!

Bob,

I recently found that my Facebook page was logged in from an IP address in the same town where my partner lives. I instantly contacted my other partners and each of them found active or recent sessions from the same IP address in both Facebook and Gmail. I confronted the senior partner (the one I suspected of gaining unauthorized access to my FB) and he made light of it. I then confronted our IT director and demanded that any monitoring software installed on my desktop in the office or my laptop (I have a VPN connection available so I can work remotely). He assured me nothing was installed. I then held a call with the senior partner and the IT director. I told them that I was hiring a forensic computer expert to help me identify how someone could have gotten the passwords for my FB. The next time I tried to boot my laptop from home (personal machine with VPN) my machine would simply not start up. Finally after 20 minutes, it gave me an error message saying that System File 32 .ps2 cannot be found. I immediately assumed that my IT director had panicked and remotely removed a key logger or some other Spyware so that a forensics expert might not be able to trace it back. Clearly, this is something of major concern... Since the three minority partners were similarly violated. The senior partner says I am paranoid... But all three of us little guys are freaking out. What do you suggest?

HI there,

I was staying at a holiday resort and used my phone to login - with resort password, to their wifi intranet system. They are well know for being on-the-case when it comes to security, and for good reason. I made a big mistake. I had a message about dating come on to my phone. In a moment's stupidity I clicked the link, and my phone, still using the resort's intranet wifi, immediately went to an unsuitable site. I hadn't really registered what was happening until after having been in a slightly hypnotic state for a fair few moments!!...I then came back to reality and quickly disconnected. I thought nothing of it until later that day when someone mentioned back to me, disapprovingly, the type of site my phone went to. Although nothing said was directly accusing, it was such a coincidence that I thought...oh, dear, this is ugly. Have I been tracked?